Religion: Popular Passion

"Pretended miracles" and "presumed visions" have been getting far too
much attention lately, warned Msgr. Alfredo Ottaviani of the Holy
Office, in the Vatican's official L'Osservatore Romano:

"Throngs of the faithful go to the scene of presumed visions and
pretended miracles and desert the church, the sacraments and the
sermon.

"The period through which we are going is between two excesses: open and
implacable lack of religion or boundless and blind religiosity. The
church, persecuted by one, compromised by the other, only repeats her
motherly warning; but her words are unheard among the denials from one
and the exaltations of the other."